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The Battle for Al-Nasid
"I saw a woman crying on the side of the road, as our column marched past. She begged every soldier as we went, if we had seen her beloved Fatima. I stopped and asked her, which Fatima? Which of the thousand thousand Fatima's? I paused to wonder for a moment, not knowing how to answer a bewildered and frightened mother, desperate to know her child's fate. I am sorry, but none of us have seen your Fatima. We lost Fatima at Al-Nasid.." Excerpt from the diary of Sergeant Shunnar Hawsawi, 32nd Forward Infantry Battalion, 1827 S.V. The Al-Nasid River is one of the most important sources of water along the Caligano Strip, stretching from the east coast all the way across the Emirates until it reaches the west coast. This importance has for a long time made it a popular target for hostile powers- particularly the Neo-Earth Federation. Ever since the founding and unification of the Emirates the Al-Nasid has been attacked, always in the same key strategic regions where cutting off the flow of water would choke out at least half of the Strip and force them into an unconditional surrender. And every time such actions have occurred, the UEM has taken back these strategic regions, generally through sacrifice of countless thousands of brave soldiers. The worst battle came shortly before the current Sultan came to power, in 1826. The NEF sent the largest army anyone had ever seen, nearly 200,000 soldiers backed up with the full might of the NEF war machine, and took control of several strategic points along the Al-Nasid, near the kingdoms of Olmar and Lahabistan. Once they had established basic fortifications, they marched on and occupied both of the nation-states, and instituted a harsh and oppressive regime upon the locals. In the space of two weeks these 'occupation forces' became 'extermination forces', slaughtering any and all civilians who would not submit to the NEF's dominance. The Emirates in turn sent out every last scrap of military power at their disposal, as refugees and lucky escapees suggested that neither kingdom would not last much longer, and once they were eradicated or subjugated they would become staging points for new assaults to the rest of the Emirates. Four and a half million soldiers marched upon the occupied states, arriving in time to find that the NEF had abandoned them just as the UEM had gotten itself into motion. Using scorched earth tactics, they left nothing in their wake but death and devastation. Hundreds of thousands of people dead, the paltry survivors broken in mind and body. Filled with a righteous indignation and fueled by hatred, the UEM fell upon the NEF at their strongholds along the Al-Nasid like a typhoon of bullets and bodies. The battle lasted for nearly eight months before the NEF's reinforcements and supplies were cut off, and the trapped clone soldiers slaughtered to the last. The losses on the UEM's part were staggering; almost two million dead and of those who had survived, many were crippled beyond currently existing medical and magical knowledge's ability to repair, and most of the Emirates' available materiel was drained to the point where reconstruction seemed infeasible. The scars of that battlefield are still fresh in the minds of many Emirate citizens, and the new Sultan draws much support from the common folk for the promise that the newly reformed UEM will never suffer losses on such a horrific scale again. Jehmarrahj Emirates Back to Main Page